Learning guitar

I’ve decided to teach myself to play guitar.  I decided this a little over a week ago and I can already play a few songs.  I tried getting my uncle to teach me because he was the only one in my family who remotely knew how.  But that didn’t work.  He is an ex marine and taught like a drill sergent.  Everytime I gave him any kind of lip back he just made me look at his marine corps ring that had his tour of duty and stuff like that on it.  He was/is not a pleasant man to be around.  Its hard to practice at my house too because my little cousins are in from california.  There are  barney dvds sing alongs blairing at all hours of the day.  That is no fun either.  But a few times I have been able to get up early and go out on the back deck with a hot beverage and practice in the mornings. That is awesome.  My mom has this special tea she gets from this website (click here to visit) and it really wakes you up.  I especially enjoy it in the morning playing guitar.  I would suggest everyone does the same.

NKY Banquet

The northern Kentucky YoungLife had its annual banquet last Thursday and they asked if any of our leaders could come down and help them with babysitting.  I volunteered because I had nothing to do and I’d like to help out.  I’m also great with kids.  I thought that atleast one or two of our girl leaders would have volunteered as well. . . but they didn’t.  It was just me and three of my friends who are about my age and don’t know how to change a diaper.  All guys by the way who have never baby sat really.  We showed up down there to baby sit and it was anarchy.  We walked in right behind one parent that dropped their kid off and had a crumpler bag full of little toys and stuff the kid likes to play with.  Apparently this is common because each kid that came in had their own accompanying bag.  There were toys everywhere.  We had 5 or 6 other people about our age to help us in there and they knew alot more than we did.  One kid particular always hung out with us.  His name was Triston.  He brought a some awesome toys and things.  They were actually moderatley fun to play with.  Then we played NASCAR where he would run around the room a few times then stop in front of us for a pit stop and we would give him a drink of water, pick him up, and mess with his legs like we were changing tires.  He loved it and it was alotta fun.  There was one other little boy who had some severe allergy to some kind of fabric.  His mom was going off about how he has special organic cotton clothing that can’t get mixed up with anyone elses and stuff like that.  He was only probably 1 so we just played with him out in the hall way for alot of the night to be safe.  It turned out to be a pretty fun night, no serious injuries, only a few accidents, I didn’t have to change any diapers and all the kids got to their respective parents.  Success!

Tuesdays equal bored

On Tuesday’s I work from home most of the day and none of my roommates are home for most of the day.  For most of it I am happy and getting work done and enjoying the peace and quiet.  Then it kind of all just hits me and I get bored and ancy and need to be around people.  I’m extremely extroverted.  I get energy from being around people I love and in groups.  Today is no exception.  I’ve just hit the I’m bored and I need to go do something wall.  My neighbors do provide some entertainment however.  They just put up one of those huge neon signs in their window.  I’ve been trying to make out what it says for the last hour and I just can’t figure it out.  It looks like a beer sign but its has some kind of character in it too.  My roommate John is in the nursing program at NKU so there are all kinds of nurse scrubs laying around.  Sometimes I put on the scrubs and act like I’m in open heart surgery.  When really I am eating spaghetti.  It feels even more real when I cook a peice of chicken and put that under all the spaghetti like its the heart.  I could get rid of some of my clothes.  I have a few Tshirts that are just ridiculous and I never wear them.  Thats what I’ll do today.  Alright mission accomplished.  Talk to you later.

School Update

School is ok.  Its not great but I’m getting through it.  I only have MWF classes so its not too bad with every other day off.  Nothing really to even update you there.  My mom got me a few things again.  She does that occasionally just to make herself feel better.  She felt bad that I got burnt at the dunes a few weeks ago so  she got me some stuff for the next time we go up there.  Probably one of the more exciting things of lately has been our aquarium fish dvd.  Its just 80 minutes of aquarium so it makes your TV look like an aquarium.  Its awesome.  You don’t have to feed them, you don’t have to clean the tank, you don’t even have to buy fish.  Just a $12 DVD from Walmart.  You can’t go wrong.  We got to go out to Kara’s house the other day.  She’s got 3 horses and we messed around on those for awhile.  She got us all fitted out with special rodeo gear.  It wasn’t real rodeo gear.  I just showed up in sandals and shorts and apparently you are supposed to have shoes and pants on or else you end up hurting yourself.  So she got me some boots and jeans that were her brothers.  It was alotta fun.  Thats about all for now.  Hopefully something more interesting in the coming weeks.

Leader Weekend!!!

Oh man, I’m really excited.  This weekend is LEADER WEEKEND.  This is up there with the greatest weekends of my year.  We usually go to Krista’s house, but we can’t do that anymore because she doesn’t lead with us anymore.  So this year we are going to a retreat center and its is going to be awesome.  I already started packing.  We may have to camp outside so I packed this really awesome organic cotton clothing my mom got me a few months ago.  I thought it was dumb at the time but it is quite possibly the warmest thing I’ve ever put on and its soooo soft too.  It would be perfect for having to keep warm while camping.  If we stay inside though, I’ll still wear it but I just might get a little hot.  The girls always surprise us with some kind of play or something like that too each year.  Two years ago it was a zombie movie, last year they did a play of the guys lives (histerical), I noticed several disney princess costumes in the back of Celina’s car yesterday but I didn’t say anything about it.  I have a feeling that may have something to do with their surprise.  Last year, probably one of the funniest parts was right after we played football.  We were all talking about how well Zack did because he never does organized sports and he was acting all cocky and stuff like that.  Then we went to sit down on the rocking chair as he said,”I’m just the most athletic person here.”  As he hit the rocking chair, the little things holding it together popped out the side and he went straight through to the ground.  We laughed very hard and he eventually did too.

Our House Update

Just to give you a little Lodge update.  Things are going awesome.  We did lose to members, but they we got Matt.  He just moved in so we are back to 5 total.  The house is very clean.  Zack, as a going away present to us, hooked us up with a big box of pirate stuff from his Dad.  His dad has to always buy wholesale pirate products for Scallywag Tag and he let Zack have a box of pirate stuff.  The coolest thing in it were a few large flags that are now flying from atop the chimney here.  Matt moving in was different but we are acclimating ourselves to him and him to us.  He takes one of these Mcklein USA briefcases every day to school, he grows his nails out to play guitar better, hes a little odd.  I never see anyone at NKU with a briefcase other than professors and Matt looks hilarious carrying it.  But he loves it and swears its much more efficient.  I might try to briefcase look a couple times just to see how it feels.  He’s still not as weird as the NKU cowboy.  There is a guy who comes to school every day dressed completely in wester-bull riding-cowboy things and walks, talks and acts like a cowboy.  He is funny to talk to but really just an odd guy.  I think I’d look good in the stuff he wears, I just don’t have the cowboy feel to me though sometimes.

Crazy Wind!

I live in Cincinnati, Oh and we were hit with the fringe wind of the Texas hurricane and it was incredible.  Trees were falling all over the place, more than half the city is with out power now and has been since Sunday.  The gas stations that had power had lines around the block and were running out of gas, the Kroger’s were out of power so they were having to get rid of their cold food and had to close down.  The whole township is in a panic.  My friend’s mom is a nurse and she got called in on Sunday in the afternoon and ended up staying at the hospital for 14 hours!  People just kept on getting hurt, things fell on them, traffic accidents with no stop lights.  She she got home, she looked completely wiped out.  Her peaches scrubs didn’t exactly reflect her mood.  A tree fell on my dad’s friend’s house.  That is really hard for him especially because he works for sports facility consultant from home so the tree went right through his office, smashing his computer.  He’s going to have to try to salvage something from the computer so he can try to start catching up on lost work.  Luckily nothing hit mine or my parents house.  The only loss was that my cousins were over and my little cousin, Cameron, left some of his toys out side.  He had a select few he loved alot and they got blown away and we couldn’t find them.  That was hard for him be he was a big boy about it and didn’t let it get him too upset.  Today and yesterday have been days of cleanup.  I kind of like the power being out though, it makes life more interesting.

Awesome Campground Lady!

Ok now that you know we went camping, allow me to introduce you to awesome campground lady.  This lady was amazing.  She gave us all the eggs and sausage we wanted one morning.  It was incredible.  We showed up just to grab some pop tarts from the camp site and she was cooking on their little portable stove.  She asked us if we wanted some and we empatically said yes.  She gave us all we wanted.  She had a few green shopping bags that were made of canvas that she gave us with a bunch of other food left over from their night before too.  We all ate and were completely satisfied.  It was awesome.  Her little boy was equally as cool.  Any kid who has one of the dark knight costumes is cool already then he just took it to another level.  He had us play batman with him and I got to be the joker.  The whole time we just talked with her and her husband.  The both worked from home and did some online marketing stuff.  They gave us their website too.  I think this was it but this may be another one.  I just searched on google for them and I think this is what they said it was.  Anyway, they made the whole weekend so much better.  I hope to run into them in the future again.  Until then, the legend of Campground Lady will grow . . .

YMCA Kids

Where I work, we have day cares and day camps come in all the time to play lasertag.  Its usually a little hectic but everyone has a good time.  The YMCA kids from this one particular YMCA that came in yesterday were a completely different story.  By far, one of the rowdiest groups I’ve ever seen.  The leaders had no control and so neither did we.  We tried to yell and tell them what was going on but they refused any type of authority.  Most of them brought some sort of other toy or something like that with them to play with.  This one little guy never let his go.  He was quiet and stood in the corner grasping onto his toy for dear life.  I finally got him to come over to me so I could but his lasertag vest on him.  He said he was scared so I walked around the arena with him.  There was another birthday part going on in the back at the same time.  Those poor people!  They had all the speed racer party supplies you could ever imagine and all they wanted was to have a little get together with their boy’s closest friends.  Instead it was interupted but the crazy YMCA kids.  The mom for the birthday party was really awesome though.  She came up to me and the other girl working and asked us,”How do you do this everyday?!” Then she handed us each a tea packet.  This was odd and she could read the confusion on my face.  “This is Japanese sencha tea.  It will help you relax and calm down after this chaotic day.”  When I got home I remembered the tea so I made it and had it and it was great.  It really did put me at peace and make me relax.  I’m going to have to buy me some of the sencha tea for every shift I have at work from now on.

Puppy Love

I have this huge urge to get a dog. I want a dog, I would love a dog, its a necessity.  My roommates are split on it so its not looking good but the two of them that do want it and I have some awesome ideas.  It would have to have one of those spiked leather dog collars.  And it would have its name branded on to te dog collar.  The name is debatable.  I’m partial to Jet or Benny or Benny the Jet or Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez.  Sandlot is my favorite movie of all time so being able to have a dog named after the hero would be superb.  Now I live with some dudes who aren’t like me at all.  I played sports in high school and didnt go to plays and went out on the weekends.  Zack, never played an organized sport, wears eye liner sometimes, stays in a drew dragons in high school on the weekends.  We was that kid who wore goth shoes to school and tried to act like he didn’t care what peoeple thought.  And yet, he is one of my best friends.  He would probably get the dog some really wierd toys but I’m sure the dog would love it.  He has some strange stuff but he is awesome.  Once you crack past that first layer of Zack, and get into who he really is not just who he looks like, you understand where the awesomeness comes from.  I had two different dogs when I was little, spooky and rocky.  Spooky snapped at my sister when she was 3 so my parents freaked out and gave him away.  Rocky was a cracked out jack russel terrier that sprinted around the yard all day and peed on everything.  Our dog would hopefully be fun but not hyper.  I just really want one now.  This is not good.